OntoVerbal-M: a multilingual verbaliser for SNOMED CT
Shao Fen Liang, Robert Stevens, Alan L. Rector · 2011
Abstract. OntoVerbal-M is an ontology verbaliser that transforms OWL into fluent natural language paragraphs in multiple languages. We describe the application of OntoVerbal-M to SNOMED CT, whereby SNOMED CT classes are presented as textual paragraphs in both English and Mandarin through the use of natural language generation. SNOMED CT is a large description logic based terminology for recording in electronic health records. Often, neither the labels nor the description logic definitions in SNOMED CT are easy for users to understand. Furthermore, information is increasingly being recorded, not just using individual SNOMED CT concepts, but using dynamically created description logic expressions (“post-coordinated ” concepts). Such post-coordinated expressions can have no pre-assigned labels. In this context automatic verbalisation into multiple languages will be useful both for understanding and quality assurance of SNOMED CT definitions, and for helping different language-speaking-users to understand and share post-coordinated expressions.